N.Y. Speaker's Law Firm Seeks People Injured in State Parks

The personal injury law firm where New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver practices is pitching its services to people injured at state parks.

A section of the Weitz & Luxenberg firm's Web site devoted to "on premises'' injury lawsuits tells potential clients they could sue the state for injuries suffered while boating, hiking, swimming or engaged in other activities at state parks.

"If you have been injured while visiting a New York state park, you may be eligible to file a lawsuit and get compensation for your pain and suffering,'' the firm says on the site.

As one of the most powerful politicians in New York, Silver has a say over how state parks are run and financed.

"The lack of clear ethics standards and an independent ethics czar creates all sorts of problems in New York and here's one example of it,'' said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group, a government watchdog group. "As long as New York state allows lawmakers to be part time with virtually no limitations on outside income you'll have issues raised.''

Charles Carrier, a spokesman for Silver, said the Manhattan Democrat "didn't know anything about it and had nothing to do with'' the Web site's solicitation.

When asked how Silver felt about the situation after finding out about it, Carrier said: "I haven't talked to him about it.''

A spokesman for Weitz & Luxenberg did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The Web site information was first reported in the New York Post's Monday editions.

That AP report isnt even half the story:

SILVER LINING

July 11, 2006 -- Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been a walking conflict of interest at least since he started taking big bucks from a high-powered tort-law firm. But his latest bid to play both sides of the street surely takes the cake.

Consider: As the Legislature's most powerful Democrat, Silver plays a key role in the oversight of state parks. But as The Post's Ken Lovett reported yesterday, Silver's law firm is trolling the Internet for anyone claiming to have been injured in one of those parks, so it can sue the taxpayers of New York for "pain and suffering."

Weitz & Luxenberg's Web site even offers a "how-to" guide for injuries at places like Heckscher State Park - mishaps, the firm suggests, that can result in big cash payouts for the lucky litigant.

"Act now!" the Web site says. "It is essential that you inquire about your premises-liability case as soon as possible." (Yesterday, the firm claimed it "does not directly target people injured at New York state parks" - though its Web site indicates otherwise.)

Amazing.

Will Silver testify for both sides as an expert witness?

Actually, the speaker isn't talking, other than to insist through an aide that he "doesn't have anything to do with" this blatant bit of ambulance-chasing.

Which is more than Silver usually says about his ties to the firm. In fact, he's never disclosed what he does for W&L. And he certainly won't say what he's paid, though it's believed to dwarf his $137,000-a-year legislative salary.

Whatever his pay, the firm can surely afford it: It claims to have collected $1.3 billion for plaintiffs over the past 20 years.

And make no mistake: Silver's earned his W&L pay, working overtime not only for the firm but for all tort lawyers.

This, despite the state Public Officers Law - which directs that no legislator "should have any interest, financial or otherwise, direct or indirect" that substantially conflicts with his public duties and which even bars lawmakers from giving "the impression that any person . . . unduly enjoys [his or her] favor."

Over the years, Silver has been a one-man roadblock to tort reform, barring nearly every proposal from even coming to the Assembly floor for a vote.

Last month, he shot down a disability-reform bill affecting city employees that would have saved Gotham millions - at the expense of tort lawyers, like those at Weitz & Luxenberg.

And last year, it took Congress to overturn a 1924 New York law - the only one of its kind in the nation - that held auto-makers and leasing firms responsible for accidents involving their vehicles. The outdated law cost taxpayers $130 million a year and drove 20 car-leasing firms out of the state. But it was a cash cow for firms like Weitz & Luxenberg - and Silver made sure that no such repeal passed the New York Assembly.

Taking big bucks from a law firm that advertises for plaintiffs to sue his other employer, the state of New York, is par for the course for Sheldon Silver.

And, given Silver's silence about his extra-curricular activities, New Yorkers are justified in suspecting the worst.

From a few years ago, this was even worse. A disgusting law firm was using a very antiquated California law to shake down small businesses. They hammered thousands of them into settlements, even though there was no injury and they didn't have a plantiff suing for injury.

Today’s News
Posted by The John and Ken Show @ 2:28 pm
Yes on 64

It’s time to close the legal loophole that is letting personal injury lawyers file shakedown lawsuits and demand attorneys’ fees from California businesses even though:

No one has been harmed,

And no one has asked that the lawsuit be filed!

The Legislature could stop this abuse, but it will not. For years sensible reforms have been blocked in Sacramento by the rich and powerful personal injury lawyers’ lobby. In the meantime, the list of shakedown lawsuit victims has been growing. Thousands of small businesses—nail salons, auto repair shops, restaurants, and many others—have been hit by frivolous lawsuits filed by personal injury lawyers using a loophole in California law. That’s why a broad-based coalition has formed Californians to Stop Shakedown Lawsuits (CSSL) to ask the voters to do what the personal injury lawyers have blocked lawmakers from doing—to close the legal loophole and stop shakedown lawsuits by voting YES on Proposition 64. Read more here.

If you ever need a personal injury lawyer...

In the course of an eventful life, I've been solicited by these goons time and again (nothing like being in the paper for a parachute accident or a spectacular car, or any plane, crash to bring the termites to the surface).

And in the course of that life, I've needed many attorneys, for routine business, non-profit inforporation, intellectual property, entertainment law, family issues, probate, and criminal defence. I've also worked with government-employed lawyers in the military and out, and helped to put violent criminals inside where they can only be violent to one another for a while.

While your advice is good, here's what I do: I ask the lawyer I trust the most (the business lawyer) who would represent him in such a case. My alternative approach, when he can't make a recommendation or I don't like his recommended attorney, is to ask the same question of three random lawyers who work in that field, from the list you get from the bar association. ("If I did not hire you, who is the next best attorney?") I give the lawyers who answer that question $50 for their time. In every case so far, at least two of the three have said the same name and I was only out $150. In one case, two of the three agreed on the name, and it was the third guy, so I was only out $100. Actually, lawyers usually get a kick out of my approach and some have tried to refuse the $50. In that case I donate it to a charity the lawyer picks, in his or her name.

I actually loathe attorneys as a profession -- a profession I once considered for just long enough to take the LSAT, but rejected for moral reasons, despite scholarship offers -- but they are often personable and always intelligent, so I don't mind talking to them. I don't admit them into my circle of friends, and I don't date them (the local dating scene is a veritable minefield of clock-chiming 30-something lady lawyers, stalking some well-off chump to sire a couple of kids and then be dumped and financially sucked dry).

One thing my approach of asking other lawyers, and yours of asking your doctor, have in common is that they are reputation-based. You will find, that in any profession, the high and the low performers are both well-known to other practitioners, but professional insiders are not bursting with anxiety to share that information with the rest of us. The Bar maintains a fiction that all attorneys are equal in performance and ethics, which may be a necessary position for an organisation trying to promote the trade overall, but in the real physical world constitutes arrant nonsense.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

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